


finding bridges in Disneyland

by smthwallflower



Category: Leverage
Genre: Disneyland, Eliot reconnecting with family, Eliot's sister Kay and his nephew Carl, F/F, F/M, Hardison loving WOW, Multi, OT3, Parker stealing fries, awkward teenagers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-30
Updated: 2020-12-30
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:54:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28422024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smthwallflower/pseuds/smthwallflower
Summary: Eliot, Parker and Hardison run into Eliot's family during a con at Disneyland and Eliot realizes that maybe he's ready to reconnect with his family.
Relationships: Alec Hardison/Parker/Eliot Spencer
Comments: 3
Kudos: 54
Collections: 2020 Leverage Secret Santa Exchange





	finding bridges in Disneyland

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Miss_Bubblegum](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miss_Bubblegum/gifts).



> For Miss_Bubblegum as part of the 2020 Leverage Secret Santa! The con part of it doesn't really go anywhere, but just assume they rocked it :P

“Just step right up here, we gotta make sure you’re tall enough, kiddo,” Eliot smiles, his corny hat falling into his eyes - he pushes it back up his forehead, ignores the fact that the kid in front of him is standing on her tiptoes to reach the minimum height on the sign. It’s a newer ride and the safety restraints will still fit snug around her narrow shoulders, he can tell by looking at her.

Parker’s voice comes in through the comm in his ear: ‘I got eyes on the fries. Target’s about halfway back.’

‘Prize, Parker,’ Hardison corrects; Eliot looks down the line, sees Parker with a handful of fries in her hand, likely swiped from a passerby. He sees her mouth move as she frowns, 

‘No - I meant fries.’ 

“Hey mister,” the little girl whines, and Eliot pulls his eyes away from Parker, fixes her with a look. The girl wilts - she knows she’s trying to cheat the system; Eliot sighs, looks around to make sure no one’s watching, and gives her a warning finger. Rodney the manager had come by recently to remind them all that height-minimums should be strictly enforced, and he’d been pretty loud about it too.

“I promise,” she says eagerly, going so far as to zip her lips, and Eliot steps aside to let her pass,

“Alright, go on then. Next!” 

Hardison catches Eliot’s eyes from the ride controls, nods meaningfully down the line. Eliot can see the purple shirt of the mark’s daughter, the bright green baseball hat of the mark’s son. He waves gaggles of kids and parents through, five minutes, ten minutes. Fifteen minutes.

‘Can’t we get a fastpass or something,’ Parker mutters, halfway down the line, and she’s got her hand over her eyes despite the baseball cap on her head. 

‘We can get a fastpass mama, but that ain’t going to help the Fetsons any.’

“They’re almost here,” Eliot mutters, purple shirt and green hat steadily drifting closer and closer. Daddy Fetson has a chiseled jaw and a mean glare, at odds with the bustle of the happiest place on earth around him. They’re taking douchebag Dad down for hiring an assassin, but they need to track him to the meeting location, catch him in the act with the police on standby.

Just one little tracking device tacked onto his shirt and they’ll be clear to follow him once family day has turned into a convenient excuse to leave the hotel room at night. There’s a chance he’ll change out of these clothes, but once they get the tracker on him, they’ll be able to keep an eye on him while he's in the park, in case the meeting gets pushed up. And they know where he’s staying, so they’ll be watching to see when he leaves the hotel at night. 

They need Parker to steer clear in case they need some bait for the hook and catch, so Eliot’s on thief duty, Hardison in the ride control booth, keeping an eye on the electronics. 

‘Incoming,’ Parker warns, but the family is right in front of Eliot, he can see that they've come in - but they’re also too close to say that, so he ignores her and points at Feston's chest saying,

“Oh, whoa, buddy pal, what’s that?” 

“What is what?” Fetson asks coldly, and purple shirt shrinks a little. 

“That there,” Eliot tells him, reaching out to pat at Fetson's shirt pocket - he sticks the tracker on the inside hem of Fetson’s shirt while he pretends to search the invisible but highly concerning bump in the pocket. “It’s something, it’s just- oh,” Eliot starts rubbing the fabric between his fingers, appreciative, “This is nice cotton buddy pal, where’d ya get this from?” 

Fetson actually growls, and he throws his hands up to knock Eliot away. “Get off of me!” 

Eliot obliges, stepping away, glancing around to share his shock with all the other shocked people around them. “Okay, okay. Just trying to protect the kids, you know?” His eye catches purple shirt, the uncertainty on her face; it edges on fear, that tremor on her lip, and Eliot can’t resist saying to her specifically: “We’re here to protect them.” 

“Can we go?” Fetson demands, and Eliot nods, waving them through, and purple shirt’s eyes linger on his as she follows her Dad through. 

Eliot hates it when there are kids involved. It just seems wrong.

‘Alright, let’s go,’ Parker says, ‘Rendezvous at Splash Mountain.’ 

Hardison’s already gone from the ride control room, and it takes Eliot a couple minutes to snag a real employee to replace him. 

“We’re not going on rides until the con is over,” Eliot reminds them as he makes his way to the Mountain in question, and he hears Hardison scoff - by the sounds of it, they’re already waiting in line. 

‘We got fastpasses Eliot - better get here quick, or you’re gonna miss the picture.’ 

-

They take lunch back at the hotel, sitting around a table in the restaurant. “We’ll watch the fireworks tonight,” Hardison tells Parker, who’s never been to Disneyland before. 

Eliot sighs, “We got plans for tonight. Remember?” 

To which Hardison rolls his eyes, “Yeah. But after that.” 

“Can we bring our own fireworks?” Parker asks, and Eliot shakes his head, glares at Hardison,

“No. We are not touching anything explosive. Especially not after the yacht.” 

Hardison takes issue with the implied accusation, throwing his hands up, “Aw no. I told you that wasn’t my fault. How was I supposed to know they were explosive?” 

“The boxes had signs, Hardison,” Eliot grinds out, because it's his hair that had been singed in the aftermath - but any further bickering comes to a grinding halt as he hears a voice behind him that he didn’t think he’d ever hear around these parts.

“Ely?” 

“Ely?” Hardison repeats, looking behind Eliot with interest - Parker’s face breaks into a soft smile, and she puts her hand over Eliot’s as she coos,

“Ely!” 

This is not happening. 

It can’t be happening. 

Eliot tries to glare at the both of them but it’s caught up in panic and a bit of embarrassment; two parts of his life colliding and while the thought of introducing them had started to grow a life of its own in-between cons and holidays, he hadn’t thought it would be like this. 

It was supposed to be on his terms, on their terms, not in the middle of a con. 

“It is you,” his sister says as she comes around to look at his face, and she frowns at him - clocks Parker’s hand on his, Hardison’s knee pressed against his just under the line of the table cloth. He’s never been that great at hiding things from her, and the confusion turns into curiosity as she looks between the three of them. “Am I interrupting something?” 

“Depends who you are,” Hardison says, and there’s so much false swagger in his voice that Eliot huffs at him, 

“Stop it. This is-” 

“I’m his sister, Kay,” Kay interrupts. 

Parker’s mouth falls open. “You’re his sister.” 

“You have a sister?” Hardison asks; Hardison knows he has a sister, Eliot’s talked about her before, it’s not one of those ‘girlfriend in Canada’ situations. 

“You pretend I don’t exist?” Kay says, aghast, and Eliot wants to punch Hardison for taking this so lightly, especially when he opens his mouth again and says, 

“I mean, he mentioned a sister. I just thought he was lying or something.” 

“Maybe I should go,” Kay smiles tightly, but Parker stands up from her chair with,

“No! Stay. Sit with us. We want to know Eliot’s sister.” Parker looks like she’ll probably chase Kay down too, if Kay doesn't agree to stay. 

“My family -” 

“They can come too,” Parker says, and she looks around, trying to identify who else might be related to Eliot here. 

Parker had Archie, Hardison had his Nana and all his foster brothers and sisters - and Eliot had a family, but he’d never really talked about them much. Or visited them. Cards and gifts every year for the holidays and birthdays, but never any interaction with real living human beings. 

Parker really wants to meet Eliot’s humans. 

A teenager with Eliot’s jawline comes up, though he’s still stuck in that awkward phase of mid-growth spurt. “Ma-” 

“Carl,” Kay says, and she pulls Carl under her arm, much to the distress of poor Carl. “Look who it is.” 

Carl’s distress turns into curiosity, which fades quickly into uncertainty. “Uncle Eliot?” he asks hesitantly, and Hardison shifts his seat closer to Parker, pulls two more up from an empty nearby table. 

Distressed children are Hardison’s kryptonite. “Y’all gotta sit. Join us.” 

“We couldn’t impose,” Kay insists and Eliot sighs - it looked like this was going to be happening whether he intended it to or not, and well... maybe he didn’t mind so much. 

“You could,” he offers to Kay, who looks at him for a moment before pushing Carl into the chair next to Hardison, and taking the empty seat next to Eliot.

There’s a moment of awkward silence, and Eliot clears his throat to break it. “So uh, what’re you doing here?” 

“We’re on vacation,” Kay tells him, and there’s a hint of that decades old tease in his voice. Eliot realizes that Hardison, Parker and him are probably the only ones not here to enjoy the park that aren’t in uniform or costume. “My friend has two little boys, and Carl’s never been.” 

“It’s cool,” Carl says noncommittally, looking studiously at his sleeves. Every once in a while he’ll send a furtive glance at one of them, but the kid clearly doesn’t enjoy the spotlight. 

There’s another pause, where one would normally reciprocate with a similar divulgence of information. But Eliot can’t exactly tell his sister and his nephew that they’re here on a con, and he looks at Hardison, who recognizes the quiet plea for yarn spinning reinforcements and perks up. 

“We’re just doing some research,” Hardison says, his matter-of-fact tone less exaggerated than it usually was when they were on a con. “Checking out the park for a company retreat. Seeing if it’ll live up to the hype. If it’s a cohesive… team building environment.” 

“Oh, yes,” Parker agrees, too brightly, and she’s not really helping the cause at all, but she’s trying and Eliot loves her for it. “Doing all that research work. Totally.” 

Her hand falls on Eliot’s again as it comes down in a show of her conviction, and Eliot sees Kay’s eye catch it. Can’t help but tense as he sees the pieces clicking into place for her. Parker had been as good as hanging off of him before the waiter came to take their order, and if Kay had been around then… 

“Mhmm,” Hardison agrees, throwing his arm around the back of Parker’s chair, his hand curling around her shoulder in a way that’s far too friendly for it to be friendly. “Quality control, you could say.” 

Kay suddenly seems much more interested in both Parker and Hardison, and she nods along to their story. Eliot can tell she doesn’t really believe it when she says, “Sounds quite imperative.” 

Parker starts in on Carl, keen in a way she only is for someone she has adopted as family; for someone she has decided deserves her kindness and love, whether or not they want to accept it. Carl doesn’t look like he’s ready for Parker's line of interrogative questioning, and Hardison gently steers the conversation to the much more comfortable topic of computers. 

The food comes and Parker takes her hand off Eliot’s so she can pick up her cutlery; Hardison leans away from Parker to start his meal, and Eliot watches Kay as she smiles and orders a salad, Carl looking up for a moment to order a burger. 

Kay puts a hand on Eliot’s arm, leans in close so they can talk quietly. Says, “It’s been a while.” 

“I know,” Eliot says softly. 

Kay glances at Parker and Hardison, and Eliot knows what she’s thinking - but it’s not that. Hardison and Parker are the two other pieces of his life; it’s not being ashamed or embarrassed of them that have led him to be MIA from Kay’s life. 

They have dangerous work. And he’s not sure how stable that bridge to Kay and this part of his life is. It’d come so close to sinking all those years ago; all his bridges had. It wasn’t until Parker and Hardison that he’d started rebuilding them, and he wants the one connecting him to Kay to be as sturdy as it can be before he tries to cross it. It’s one of the most important bridges he has. 

The other two bridges lead to the people across the table from him; Parker’s foot hooked around his calf, Hardison glancing at him to share his appreciation for Carl, who knows what Shadowlands is. 

“You should come visit for Christmas,” Kay says, and Eliot looks at Hardison. Looks at Parker, who’s leaning into Hardison with an indulgent smile on her face. “You should all come,” Kay insists with a hopeful smile, and Eliot thinks that maybe, just maybe, with Parker and Hardison helping brace that foundation, this bridge might finally be ready to cross. 

“Yeah. That’d be real nice.”


End file.
